Wounds Beneath the Surface

"You know what the problem is?" Tiny Fair asked, watching the gulls circle over the grey sea.

Frenchy shrugged. "There are so many, you'll have to narrow it down."

Tiny smiled faintly. "People think trauma is the event."

"It isn't?"

"No. The event ends. Trauma stays behind and rearranges the furniture."

Frenchy looked towards the horizon where the tide was pulling quietly away from the shore.

"So what is it?"

"It's the silence afterwards."

The wind carried the smell of salt and rain.

Frenchy picked up a smooth stone and turned it over in his hands.

"I always imagined trauma was loud. Screaming. Shouting. Broken glass."

Tiny shook her head.

"That's memory. Trauma is quieter than that. Trauma is sitting peacefully in a beautiful room and still searching for the nearest exit."

Frenchy laughed softly.

"That's strangely accurate."

"I know."

They walked a little further.

"I used to think people healed by forgetting," Frenchy admitted.

"And now?"

"I think they heal when they stop apologising for remembering."

Tiny stopped beside the old sea wall stained green by years of tidewater.

"The hardest part isn't surviving terrible people."

"No?"

"It's surviving becoming someone who expects terrible people everywhere."

Frenchy nodded.

"So every kindness feels suspicious."

"Exactly."

"And every compliment sounds like bait."

Tiny looked down at the shells scattered across the wet sand.

"Children build themselves from what they're given."

Frenchy was silent.

"If they're given love..."

"They become fearless."

"And if they're given fear?"

"They become architects."

Frenchy frowned.

"Architects?"

"They build invisible rooms inside themselves. Rooms with no windows. No doors. Places where nobody can reach them again."

The waves folded onto the beach in slow rhythm.

"I lived in one of those rooms," Frenchy said quietly.

Tiny didn't answer immediately.

"So did I."

They continued walking.

Neither tried to fix the other.

Neither searched for clever words.

Some conversations are not about answers.

They are simply two people recognising the shape of the same scar.

After a while Frenchy smiled.

"Do you think scars ever disappear?"

Tiny looked out across the water where the evening light had begun to turn silver.

"No."

Frenchy sighed.

"That's disappointing."

Tiny shook her head.

"No. Because scars aren't proof that we were broken."

"What are they then?"

"They're proof the wound closed."

The sea continued its endless conversation with the shore.

For the first time in years, neither of them felt the need to drown out the silence.

Sometimes healing does not arrive like sunrise.

Sometimes it arrives as another human being quietly saying,

"I know."

And somehow, that is enough for you to keep walking.